It was a hopeless case. Nobody cared about me. Nobody saw the monster I sensed in him. I had no choice but to leave with him. It wasn’t even like I could run away. I could barely even walk, and where would I run to?
By two in the afternoon, they set me free. The cuts and broken bones healed by the day, but not my memory. My body felt stronger every day. My mind did not. Nothing. I had nothing to go on. My entire memory laid in six days. That’s how many days it had been since I had woken from a dark somberness to this. To hell.
I stood in my room overlooking the parking lot, and I waited. I just didn’t know what for. I didn’t feel like I belonged with Paxton. I didn’t feel like a mom, and I sure as hell didn’t feel like leaving with him.
“Ready, my love? I brought you a sundress to wear home. Hope that’s okay,” Paxton said, like we were going home with our first-born child. Like a proud papa.
I turned slowly and looked at him. “Yeah, it’s fine. Can you get the nurse for me?”
“For what?” Paxton asked, brows curled into a frown. His toe kicked the door shut and he opened the bag.
I reminded him of the obvious with a distasteful glare. I could barely sit on a toilet, and he thought I could handle moving my arms and legs in painful positons. Idiot. “I can’t dress myself yet.”
Paxton took my hand and helped me sit on my bed, propping my crutches against the chair. The scent of his cologne drifted between us when he brushed hair from my face. “Who do you think will be doing this at home?”
“No. I want a nurse. You’re not dressing me,” I said with an assured tone.
His fingers glided over my face and down my neck as his lips lowered to mine. My breath caught deep in my chest when his hand came to a stop around my throat. Is wasn’t the grip he held around my throat as much as the icy-warm words to my lips. The words were cold, spoken with warm breaths.
“I will be your nurse. I will change your clothes, and I will wash your *. We clear on that, baby? I don’t really like debating things. You know?” he questioned with a tighter grip and then another kiss.
Yes. I knew. I knew exactly what he meant. Don’t rock the boat. As much as I wanted to stand up to him, put him in his place, I couldn’t. I cowered with nod.
“That’s my girl,” he said with soft kisses to my lips. His grip eased up on my throat and his thumb lifted my chin. It hurt to look up like that, but the adrenaline pumping through my body kept me from saying so. A steady thump pounded in my chest as he kissed me. His tongue traced my lips, but I didn’t part them. I held them in a thin, straight line. He couldn’t make me kiss him back.
“Open. Your. Mouth,” he ordered, planting a kiss on my mouth between each word.
I wanted to tell him no. That was my intention, but it’s not what I did. I dropped my jaw, lowering my bottom lip for his tongue. It was those eyes. Those piercing, dark eyes. There was something there. Something behind them that scared the hell out of me. This was the first time since I had met Paxton that fear gripped me to my bones—at least from what I could remember, anyway. He’d intimidated me several times, but it hadn’t really scared me. Not like this.
Paxton hovered above me, kissing me with his hand around my throat. I’m not sure if I kissed back or not. I don’t think I really had a choice. It was hard not to with his tongue shoved in my mouth like that.
I felt the string being pulled from my green hospital gown on my back when he pulled away. Paxton stood in front of me and slid my gown over my shoulders. His eyes glittered with hunger as undressed me like we were about to make love right there in the hospital room.
I sat on the edge of the bed and watched his face and his lustful eyes. He licked his lips and ran the flat of his hand over my beading nipple. It didn’t go erect because of arousal; it hardened because of the chill. Of course, Paxton and his ego assumed it was their doing.
“I knew you missed me,” he said in a boasting tone, his gaze searching mine. The pounding in my heart picked up a thousand times harder, thumping loud in my head. With his power, Paxton showed me who was in charge, putting me right in my place. Wherever that was.
I didn’t speak a word—not that I could have if I’d tried, but still. I didn’t know what to say. This was about to happen whether I approved or not. Paxton and his power trip degraded me with elegance. Like it was his honorable duty to disgrace me with dignity.
His words were soft and loving, yet bold, and callous. “I’m so glad you didn’t mess any of this up. It would have been a shame.”